


Report Staff Drabbles & Ficlets

by ErinPtah



Series: Fake News Drabbles and Ficlets [2]
Category: Fake News FPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Coffee Shops, Drabble Collection, Ficlet Collection, Gen, Handkerchief Code, Seven Heavenly Virtues
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2006-12-28
Updated: 2011-03-06
Packaged: 2017-12-08 08:20:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 2,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/759192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ErinPtah/pseuds/ErinPtah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An ongoing collection of shortfics featuring the (fictional, in-universe) staff of <em>The Colbert Report</em>. Some incidents of Tad/Bobby and "Stephen"->Jon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Animal Magnetism

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Takes place during [Bobby's secret mission to Vegas](http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/182111/july-26-2006/rescue-stephen-jr-).

"You have to understand...this isn't something I'd normally do."

"I’m not surprised. Don't take this the wrong way, but you don't look the type."

"Yeah, I know. If it weren't for your animal magnetism, I wouldn't even _consider_ this."

"Can't believe I'm considering it myself. But hey – it’s Vegas, right?"

“I just can't shake the feeling that Stephen will find out. You know how he is..."

"Bobby. Relax. He won’t hear a word of it. This is just between you, me, and the audience."

"Thanks, Mr. Ocasek."

"Call me Ric.”

(Their bear-training act puts Siegfried and Roy to shame.)


	2. The Memo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Follow-up to [the bit where Meg "dies"](http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/73587/august-21-2006/the-word---side-effects).

Every _Report_ hiree got the memo:

_1) Stephen is always right._

_2) If Stephen is being absurd, smile and nod._

_3) If Stephen is just plain wrong, smile and nod._

_4) Then do what you know is right._

_5) But don’t let him find out._

_6) If you absolutely must challenge Stephen, make sure Killer is standing nearby._

_7) Get Stephen's coffee right._

_8) NEVER EVER EVER compare Stephen to Jon Stewart._

 

Breaking any of these rules could cost you the job.

And yet, Meg went to the trouble of faking her death instead.

Tad sighed as he hauled out the body. Some people were such drama queens.


	3. Morning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A reference to [this situation](http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/210980/december-22-2008/let-the-eagle-soar).

Stephen wakes up slowly.

At some level, he does realize that there's work to be done. He has foes to fend off, competition to combat, and, before any of that, breakfast to eat – if someone doesn't snatch it from him.

Every instinct tells Stephen to be vigilant. You can never tell when you'll be attacked, after all.

Still, for one brief slumbering moment, he’s calm.

Then he hears the growl.

*

"I think that one's going to hurt himself," frets the new handler.

"Don't worry," an old hand reassures her. "Stephen Junior always does that when the bears get restless."


	4. Candy and Air | Follow Shot On Bobby

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Follows [this Russ Lieber segment](http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/180973/october-20-2005/lieber---candy-and-air), and refers to [the staff performance reviews](http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/60608/march-21-2006/employee-performance-reviews).

"This is so bad for us," remarked Meg halfheartedly. "We should probably stop."

"How much did you buy from his daughter's fundraiser?" countered Bobby, who had propped himself contentedly against the giant tub of individually wrapped chocolates.

Meg frowned as she reached for her third almond cluster in as many minutes. "What? . . . Oh. I wasn't around back then. He made everyone buy fudge from her school, right?"

"Exactly. And then he ended up giving my order to Killer." Bobby reached into the tub and retrieved an overflowing fistful of candy. "So I'm eating as much of this as I can."

~*~

Jimmy blocked the scene in his head as he walked in.

Pan across break room: Bobby, half-empty tub of candy, Meg. Cut to massive pile of discarded wrappers. Zoom out to reveal Bobby, as he tosses another wrapper onto the pile.

Cut to Jim, doing his best to be tactful: "Bobby, have you ever considered joining a gym?"

Bobby fidgeted. "I don't think it's for me.”

“You used to get beat up in gym class, didn’t you."

Close-up on Bobby's sigh. "Yeah."

(The next day found Bobby gamely running a treadmill, Killer standing at his side. He wasn’t interrupted once.)


	5. In Season And Out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Drabble-and-a-half, following [Stephen's plan for new merchandise](http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/182082/july-18-2006/wwiii). The title is from 2 Timothy 4:2: 'Be prepared in season and out of season.'

It starts with a coffee spill, which has Bobby in the restroom for five minutes, wringing out his shirt and running the hapless front under cold water.

Then somebody drops a cigarette in a trash can. Bobby and Tad both descend with fire extinguishers – from opposite sides. Tad pulls off his jacket, and spends the rest of the day avoiding Stephen’s poorly disguised ogling. Bobby's only wearing a shirt, so he has to leave it on and deal.

But when he's sent on emergency deli run (Stephen needs a BLT, and they're out of L), the summer sun takes its toll. He returns to the studio hot, sticky, and unwilling to take it anymore.

There's a box of leftover T-shirts in the studio, so he trades his own unsalvageable specimen for one of these.

Thus, Bobby is the only one actually wearing a WELCOME JESUS shirt when the Rapture comes.


	6. The Last Best Hope

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Follows the two-part [Bill Bennett](http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-june-6-2006/bill-bennett-pt--1) [interview](http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-june-6-2006/bill-bennett-pt--2), and [its follow-up](http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-june-7-2006/not-one-f-g-in-my-family).

When the interview first aired, Stephen was delighted.

"That man has the right idea," he told anyone who would listen, and ordered his own copy of _America: The Last Best Hope_.

The next day, when the show opened and the cheering had died down, Jon stammered through the question of what they had talked about while the cameras weren’t recording.

Twelve to fourteen business days later, Bobby found a box from Amazon in the garbage. It hadn’t been opened, but it was a wreck. Almost as if the poor thing had been stomped on, by somebody with very expensive shoes.


	7. Blame The Lutherans

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Comes right before [Stephen declares Jon to be Called Out](http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/72856/august-14-2006/jon-s-apology).

"There’s . . . uh . . . a backlog! At the factory. When you declared Lutherans 'Dead To You', they started making cards for every individual Lutheran. It’s holding things up."

"So there's no way to put Jon properly On Notice by Monday's show?"

"No, Stephen. Sorry."

"But I said I would! I can’t back down now. These colors don't run!"

"Maybe you could improvise? There's an old whiteboard in the supply closet."

"Great! Do that. Knew I hired you for a reason. Frankly, Bobby, this is kind of a relief. I wasn’t looking forward to putting Jon On Notice."

"Never would have guessed, Stephen."


	8. Waiting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written after the intro to [the December 2, 2008 Wørd](http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/211989/december-02-2008/the-word---a-man-named-plaxico).

Dear Mr. Colbert,

Apparently you can't take a blatant hint even when I put it right in front of your face. (Well, right next to your face. Close enough.) So let me spell it out for you.

Stewart's in love with you.

And I'm pretty sure you're in love with Stewart. He's just waiting for you to figure it out.

But you're too dense to notice either of these things, which is why he's been pining after you unsuccessfully for . . . well, at _least_ as long as I've worked here. And it's about time you got over your bizarre hang-ups and planet-sized blind spots and let the man shag you, already. It would do you both good.

I'm never going to give you this letter, of course. I want to _keep_ my job.

So this is going to end up stuck in the drawer with all the others, and I'm going to go back to dropping sly little hints, and you will continue to miss them completely, because you are apparently unable to see even things so obvious that everyone else in a five-block radius has picked up on them.

But one of these days someone is going to be brave enough or stupid enough to say all this to your face.

And I hope it happens when we're on the air, because I've already put together a whole montage to go with it.

Sincerely,  
Jimmy


	9. Or You Could Show Him How To Work Your Nail Guns

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Double drabble for one of the unclaimed prompts over at LGBTfest: _1086\. Punditslash, Tad/Bobby, Something happens and now Stephen knows about their relationship. How do they handle being out to their boss, and how does Stephen's own repressed sexuality come into play?_

In the summer when Bobby turned six, his parents got an addition built on their house.

He was told to keep away from the construction, because it was Very Dangerous and he could get Badly Hurt. But he wanted to know _everything_ – how the nail gun worked, how they made cement, how they decided where to put the walls, all of it! – and spent the first week lurking around the site, ducking behind stacks of plywood whenever anyone glanced in his direction, taking in everything with a wide-eyed combination of terror and curiosity.

(And, okay, maybe a little fascination at the muscular men without shirts on, even then.)

When he brought this up, Tad laughed nervously. "Are you saying I should get to the gym?"

"No, no, nothing like that! My point is, that's exactly the expression Stephen's had ever since, well, you know."

("You know" involved a heated makeout session and a door whose lock was two days past its warranty.)

He nodded meaningfully towards the other side of the studio. Tad turned just in time to see Stephen ducking behind the audience seats.

"Huh," he said. "What finally made _you_ back off?"

"Um. Only the ice cream truck."


	10. The Pun Was Too Good T'Eschew

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another LGBTfest prompt, with a slightly sadistic twist: _1079\. Punditslash, Character!Stephen Colbert and Meg the intern, To Stephen, hitting on women is a way to force his sexuality into line. When Meg refuses his advances on the grounds that she's a lesbian (and it's *sexual harassment*) he decides that they can 'help' each other become straight. Meg is forced to teach Stephen a few things._
> 
> ([Handkerchief code](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handkerchief_code).)

"Are you really, really, _really_ sure about this?" asked Stephen.

Meg – who had finally agreed to join his support group for _Report_ staff struggling with deviant urges, raising its total membership to two – sighed. "Blah blah test our strength yadda yadda ladies talk too much," she replied. (Something like that, anyway.)

Stephen made it through the door before stopping again. "But what if they think we're like _them?_ " he hissed, leaning close to be heard over the noise of the bar.

"Good point," said Meg. "Better do something heterosexual, just to make sure."

She gave the seat of Stephen's pants a healthy squeeze.

"There. Now we can start converting."

She gestured towards a large man with a handkerchief in his left back pocket. Stephen recognized the color from his extensive association with designer ties: hunter green, same as one of the hankies Meg was carrying. (The other was peach.)

Well, _had_ been carrying, a second ago. She must have put them away.

"I have a good feeling about that guy," she confided. "Don’t jump into the heavy stuff right away, though. Start a conversation first. Tell him you're a big admirer of Papa Bear's. I bet that'll go over well."


	11. Honey Mustard (or, Is Bobby Delicious?)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stephen Colbert eats his (former) stage manager. Tad is not happy about this. (Fixit fic.)

Tad marched down the hall, resolutely ignoring the flag-draped pictures of his boss that he would usually stop every few feet to admire. He focused instead on making long, purposeful strides—not a familiar task, but he managed it.

_Stephen Colbert, you've gone too far this time!_

Suppressing a shudder, Tad threw open his boss' office—and gasped.

"Shh!" hissed a marvelously familiar voice. "Close the door!"

Openmouthed and speechless, the building manager hopped quickly across the threshold and clicked it shut behind him.

"I meant you should close it with you on the other side," sighed Bobby, who was sitting on Stephen's chair with his elbows on the polished hardwood of the boss' desk. "Listen, Tad, you can't tell anyone about this, all right?"

"You—you—!" stammered Tad. "You're alive?"

"Yeah."

"You haven't been eaten?"

"Nope."

"Not even a little?" Tad took a nervous step forward, imagining the building manager's thigh with a bite-sized chunk taken out of it.

"Stay there!" squeaked Bobby, then swallowed and got his voice under control. "I'm fine. The whole cannibalism thing, it's a cover story. Don't repeat a word of this outside the office, okay?"

"Sure—fine—but why?"

"I'm going to be doing black ops for the Colmandos. Full time. Stephen thought this would be a good way to keep people from asking questions about my disappearance. The _America's Next Top Stage Manager_ story wasn't going to hold forever."

"He thought _pretending to be eaten_ would _keep_ people from—"

"Just roll with it, okay?"

Tad nodded. Not like he wasn't used to doing that, after all. Still . . . .

"You couldn't have told _me?_ " he blurted, sounding more plaintive than he wanted to.

Bobby looked cowed. "I wanted to. Believe me, Tad, if there's anyone I wanted to tell, it was you. But Stephen said no, and you know how he is."

"I sure do," muttered Tad under his breath. "Short-sighted, self-centered control fr—"

There was a muffled noise of protest from under the desk; Bobby twitched, and it cut off.

"Was that—"

"You _know_ ," repeated Bobby meaningfully, "how Stephen is."

Tad knew, all right. And he really, really did not want to think about it.

"Right," he stammered. "I'll . . . I'll just go, then."

"Tad?"

"Yeah?"

"Listen . . . I'll, uh, I'll send you postcards, okay?"

"What?"

"I mean, I won't be able to put my name on them. Because of the whole secret agent thing and all. But when you get a postcard with a weird postmark and no return address, those will be from me. If you don't mind."

"No!" exclaimed Tad. "Not at all. I'd like that."

With that he made for the hall before the crushing awkwardness could obliterate him completely.

 _Look on the bright side,_ he told himself, doing his best to ignore the voices coming through the door. ("Are you sure this is necessary?" "Oh, yes. Test of endurance. Absolutely required.") _If you ever do get the balls to ask that man out, you can tell people you're dating a secret agent._

_Well, you probably won't be able to tell them. But you'll know._

_You'll know._


	12. Seven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Based on the virtues given in Dante's _Purgatorio_ , where each corresponds to one of the Deadly Sins. Seven sentences, seven virtues, seven "Stephens" (and associated doppelgangers, alter egos, and hallucinatory voices).

**Humility (/pride) - Jermaine Maine**

She only sings when she's alone, long blonde wig fanning over her shoulders like a shampoo commercial; Tad walked in on her once and blurted that with a voice like that she deserves a bit on the show, but she knows it would be wrong to steal Stephen's thunder (and besides, she owes it all to Miley anyway).

 

**Generosity (/envy) - Happy!Stephen**

The hairs on the back of his neck are prickling, like one of the employees is already glaring at him; when he turns, though, it's just the guy in the shocking pink, smiling like a sunbeam and holding out an envelope (Jon hadn't even realized they _made_ Congratulations On Your New Job cards featuring Hello Kitty).

 

**Meekness (/wrath) - Steve ColberT**

Stephen's latest impossible demand sounds much less terrifying when it's the kid repeating the words on his behalf: so much so that Bobby finds himself explaining _why_ it's impossible, and spends all next week reeling from the heady sensation of being treated like he knows what he's talking about.

 

**Zeal (/sloth) - Stephen**

Between editorial meetings, recording sessions, negotiations over that book deal he's working on, impassioned phone calls to every anchor who brings up Obama's name without mentioning his socialist agenda, and twenty minutes he doesn't have spent signing things for a couple of overjoyed fans who flew in all the way from Kansas, Stephen charges into Jon's office, collapses onto the couch, and demands that Jon not let him sleep for more than five minutes (Jon gives him ten).

 

**Charity (/greed) - Liberal!Stephen**

Allison catches him staring at the little golden statue with an intensity that in another person might be mistaken for possessiveness, and steps in quickly to talk him down before he can resolve to auction it off and send the proceeds to Planned Parenthood.

 

**Temperance (/gluttony) - Sweetness**

The desire is always there, sometimes almost overwhelming; but she fortifies herself with thoughts of the romantic dinner Stephen has promised her as a reward (at Starbucks, where they don't discriminate), and makes it through a whole week without demanding the blood of anyone in the audience.

 

**Chastity (/lust) - Esteban Colberto**

When Amora lands a small but steady role in a new _telenovela_ , Esteban finds himself deluged with applications for her replacement: the women who flank him on-camera may show off thighs and necklines for appearance's sake, but he's never pressured any of them for more behind the scenes, and apparently the word has gotten around.


	13. And Make It Snappy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompted by politicette, who wanted me to pair "Stephen" with someone other than Jon. Such as, perhaps, [the barista under his desk](http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/177959/july-31-2008/starbucks-cuts-jobs).

"Double whipped grande black mocha venti latte with cream and sprinkles, on the rocks. And make it snappy."

Barry raised his eyebrows at his insistent customer. "Do you have any idea what any of that means?"

"Not a word," said Colbert proudly. "I'm not some latte-sipping Volvo-driving east-coast liberal. I'm a salt-of-the-earth kind of guy. Which reminds me: give this thing a dash of salt."

"Are you sure—"

"Of course I'm sure! Stop questioning my gut, apron-boy. The customer is always right, remember? Hop to it!"

Deciding it wasn't worth the fight, Barry did his best to fulfill at least half of the request. Given the location of this branch, Colbert was probably going to be one of his primary customers; it would pay, in all senses of the word, to make nice with him.

"Here you go, sir," he said with forced cheer, sliding the foam cup across the counter. " _Exactly_ as you asked for."

"Good man." Colbert took a sip; Barry watched in horrified fascination as the man's face contorted into the kind of expression normally reserved for the carvings on old Gothic churches. "S-see?" he croaked. "Delicious!"

Barry would have put money on Colbert collapsing after two or three more sips. When the man had finished a third of the cup, and it became clear that he was determined to finish it all in spite of the fact that his face was turning slightly green, Nick decided he was either brave or crazy, and either way deserved a break.

"Oh, right! We're actually having a special today," he improvised. "To celebrate the opening. Buy any coffee," not that what Colbert was holding fit any but the most generous definition of the word, "and get a cup of the house special, absolutely free."

Colbert gave Barry a look which suggested that he either had X-ray vision or was trying to spontaneously develop it. "What's the house special?"

"That's, um, a secret," stammered Barry. "But it involves coffee."

"Good enough for me. Hit me."

So Barry threw together a standard double-chocolate-chip frappuccino, added extra syrup to help knock out the other flavors that were no doubt currently waging war on Colbert's tongue, made a note to himself to add money from his wallet to the drawer, and handed the new cup over. Colbert gulped this one down like a drowning man would swallow air.

He should have been relieved and been done with it. The strawberry syrup nozzle was clogged, the left-entrance trash can was overflowing, and the napkin dispenser was running low. He had more than his share of other things to take care of.

Barry kept a close eye on the man anyway, until he was certain that the proper color had returned to Colbert's cheeks.


End file.
